Gloom Cupboard

February of this year saw the reissue of two of award-winning, North Carolina poet Jeffery Beam’s collections: the aptly-titled Midwinter Fires and the gloriously minimalist  MountSeaEden. Originally published in 1990 by French Broad Press, Midwinter Fires is a skillfully-woven tapestry of emotions that fully lives up to the ReBound series’ claim to select:- “..outstanding out-of-print [...]

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Alexandra Singer’s new book Tea at the Grand Tazi, is a dervish of underground secrets and a story full of twists and turns that take you through the rough streets of Morocco, a place where few people dare to leave the main drag. The journey unfolds as Maia is referred to an old colleague of [...]

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The Last Man R.L. Swihart Kanev Books; March 20, 2012 I am in the habit of agreeing to time consuming tasks that I don’t really have time to complete. The Last Man is one of my recent over extensions but it is also a reminder of why I say yes to most anything written, because [...]

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The linguist at play…   Compendium/by Kristina Marie Darling/Cow Heavy Books Kristina Marie Darling compends. She expouts. She uses palimpsest . She goes back and forth covering you compiling these stories. In Compendium from Cow Heavy Books (2011), Darling uses simple stated facts throughout her fiction to bring the reader through the tale then feet [...]

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Imagine the fragmented pattern that is created when a mirror is flung on a hard floor and shatters int a myriad of fragments. That was the visual metaphor that occurred to me when I read Attributes, a new collection of poems by Belfast-born Michael McAloran.

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  I had the pleasure of recently attending a book launch in Dublin in The Winding Stair, an independent bookshop where books were hung like wind chimes or dream-catchers in the window, exceptional for its picture-window view of one of the capital city’s most attractive landmarks, the Ha’penny Bridge.  Garlanded with icicle-blue Christmas lights, the [...]

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Only the Ground Is Bloodier Than the Sky: A Review of Joseph M. Gant’s Zero Division by Craig Scott Zero Division by Joseph M. Gant Rebel Satori Press www.rebelsatoripress.com

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At Don Quixote’s house, before his journey, there was nothing more dangerous than a poet. Centuries later, one wonders if a poem can still cause any real movement—if a protest poem read from the steps of a capitol can cause any chip in the marble, or in the windmill across the way. Stacia Fleegal’s Versus acknowledges [...]

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One of the most important (and productively hurtful) things a writing mentor once said to me, after reading a piece I’d written and rewritten I didn’t know how many times, was “Good job. Second draft out of ten.” Jesus Angel Garcia’s “transmedia” novel, badbadbad, though presented as finished, seems in actuality at a similar awkward [...]

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